People across the Houston region can be forgiven for feeling a bit of déjà vu Tuesday afternoon as live local news coverage depicted fiery scenes at a chemical plant in Crosby owned by KMCO LLC. Law enforcement said one person had been killed and two were LifeFlighted to the hospital.

Details were scant.

Worries, questions and frustrations were not.

At a press conference, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said it was “disturbing” and “problematic” that the incident comes on the heels of the Deer Park fire at the Intercontinental Terminals Co.

It was only two weeks ago that a multi-tank fire raged out of control at the ITC plant, which had a history of environmental violations that garnered little more than wrist slaps from state regulators at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Fortunately, there were no deaths or injuries, though we may never know the public health toll of an incident that reportedly spewed 9 million pounds of pollution on the first day. That’s more illegal air pollution than reported for the entire Houston region in 2017.

Among them: The facility is currently not compliant with the federal Clean Water Act. In fact, Dempsey found, it was in violation for seven of the past 12 quarters. It violated the Clean Air Act three times in the past 12 quarters. Environmental Protection Agency data show the facility on Feb. 22, 2018, violated the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which regulates how facilities handle hazardous and non-hazardous solid waste.

The plant has dozens of Occupational Safety and Heath Administration violations since 2010, Dempsey reported. And Harris County sued the plant in 2008 for spills and fumes that gave neighbors headaches, which ended with a permanent injunction requiring KMCO to pay $100,000 in civil penalties.

But this is what happens in a state where environmental regulators are toothless tigers. Where the TCEQ trusts polluters to police themselves — in part out of necessity, since lawmakers don’t adequately fund the agency. Where violators avoid sanctions and routinely endanger Texans’ health without our knowledge. Where Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton talk tough, maybe even file a lawsuit after an incident makes headlines, but look the other way when the smoke clears.

At this rate, the smoke will never really clear. There will be another fire. And another.

Another round of parents fearing for their children’s safety. Another community fearing the effects of chemicals and pollutants they can’t pronounce. Another black eye to Houston’s already bad reputation as a place where one shouldn’t breathe too deeply, a place where profits outweigh concern for public health.

As we’ve pointed out, Texas facilities in 2017 reported releasing more than 63 million pounds of unauthorized air pollution — including chemicals linked to cancer, heart attacks and respiratory problems, according to a report by Environment Texas. But, in the past seven years, TCEQ issued fines in less than 3 percent of such events.

“These repeated, disastrous fires and explosions can no longer be called isolated incidents,” Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, told the editorial board Tuesday. “The Texas petrochemical industry has a serious, chronic problem, and Texas workers and citizens are paying the price. How many people have to die, get hurt, get cancer or suffer respiratory failure before the state takes this seriously and overhauls our broken system of oversight?”

Texans, these are questions for Abbott and our other state leaders. It’s up to us to demand the answers.